With increasing worldwide demand for consumer products, demand has increased for the chemicals used in manufacturing processes for such consumer products. Such chemicals are often derived from petroleum or agriculture resources through catalyzed reactions. As such, demand for catalyst remains high.
Catalysts are used in a variety of applications, ranging from the synthesis of desirable products to the removal of pollutants from waste streams. While catalysts may mix homogenously with reactants, often catalysts are solid or are formed on a solid support. Typically, a sold catalytic agent is coated onto a catalyst support to increase the surface area of the catalytic agent available for contact with the reactants, which are typically in a liquid or gaseous form. Determining an appropriate material for the catalyst support leads to consideration of several properties, such as specific surface area, pore size, pore volume, and physical, chemical, and thermal durability.
Traditional support materials often exhibit a trade off between porosity and mechanical strength. Higher porosity materials typically have poor mechanical properties, such as compression strength, while lower porosity materials generally have reasonable mechanical properties. As such, catalyst support materials with improved mechanical properties and strength are desired.